Yes, you read that post title correctly.
Please remember that I am a non-bleeding heart liberal living in King County, Washington, so no matter what I choose on my ballot today, I stand a good chance that my vote will be evened out by a fictional homeless person registered at the county courthouse or someone who has moved out of the county and was dumb enough to mail the absentee ballot that the KC Elections Office sent to them (because the office is such a clusterfuck) back to the Elections Office in an attempt to be honest, only to have some miscellaneous KC employee use it to re-elect the person signing their paychecks and issuing pay raises.
And that is just what can happen if my vote even makes it from my polling place to the counting place. But what the hell, I still give it my all on voting day. When else am I going to have the opportunity to get assaulted again at one of the local Seattle schools?
While this is an off-year election, it is still an exciting one, what with the nationwide 50/50 split being encapsulated here in Washington.
I figure that I have at least the same chance of folks from across the US who visit RNS caring about who and what I’m voting for as the King County Elections Board.
So let’s run it down, shall we?
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First, the initiatives:
I-900: This initiative will actually give the State Auditors Office some teeth. For over a decade now, the State Auditor has little to do since, when he would start and audit, the office or agency he was looking at could just simply tell him to go away and leave them alone.
Again, yes, you read that right; the Washington State Auditors Office can be told to piss off. The only requirement is that the office or agency promise to audit themselves within the next 365 days.
Isn’t that wonderful!?! No wonder this state is so financially screwed up and so many of the voters so distrustful of their government, hopefully enough of them that this will pass. I haven’t seen any polling done on this Initiative, mostly due to the next two taking all the coverage.
I-901: If you like to force your preferences on others, you will love this Initiative!
It is euphemistically titled “The Clean Indoor Air Act�. This particular measure would prohibit smoking in all buildings and vehicles open to the public or places of employment. It would also forbid smoking within 25ft of windows, doorways and ventilation systems of the previously listed places.
Bye-bye Cigar Bars, rock clubs, etc. Hello tribal casinos!
You see, the ‘Casino Americans’ would not be effected if this becomes law and would rake in the rest of the smoking public that doesn’t already frequent their establishments on a regular basis.
The tribes have contributed big wampum to push this measure because, even though none of the palefaces who are in favor of taking the business owner’s choice of whom to market to away will admit the truth about smokers just moving over to the casinos, the redskins are smart enough to see a money making opportunity.
Next up, we have two Initiatives that deal with the out of control medical malpractice insurance costs; they are I-300 and I-336.
Here is the problem: I-300 was written by the companies that insure the doctors and I-336 was written by trial lawyers, so they both suck raw eggs in terms of what is best for me, the potential patient.
I have heard very little from the pro-336 people and the best lines that the pro-330 people can come up with are “The lawyers are lying. Look, they’re lips are moving� and “Are you going to wait for the perfect tort reform bill to come along?�
My answer to the first is “I’m following the money� and to the second I say “I don’t want perfect, I just want the one that the doctors and nurses will endorse�.
The I-330 people have done a good job of branding their initiative as positive though. So much so that some folks have received pre-recorded messages from non-other than John F-ing Kerry on behalf of Osama Mama Patty Murray who is, of course, opposing the measure.
OMG! Kerry and I agree on something. Please excuse me while I wash my mind out with soap.
I have spoken about I-912, the anti-gas tax measure, here before and I am doing so again in a follow up post to this one because there are some new developments and it deserves a post in and of itself.
In a truly disgusting maneuver to get more tax money for the so called homeless, the county has decided to scrape the bottom of the barrel with County Proposition 1: The Veterans and Human Services Levy.
This turd of a proposal would add a nickel to every $1000 of property tax assessed. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? Well, when you figure that the median property value in King County is around $350,000 and there are a few hundred thousand homes of that value and more here, it starts to add up.
But the truly disgusting part is that while the word ‘Veterans’ IS in the title, the money doesn’t have to go to them. If the county wants to devote half of the money to building more flophouses, they are perfectly able to do so without having anyone to answer to. The county is facing shortfalls in the very near future for funding for their ‘homelessness’ programs due to necessary budget cuts and they see this as their meal ticket to stay in business.
And this is the part that most people don’t know about. They see ‘Veterans Services’ and think it’ll go to a good cause, but I would lay down money that the total spent on vets is less than 20% of the total taken in.
There will be two ‘advisory boards’ created to monitor the movement of the money, but they are appointed, not elected positions. So you have a dominant left county being run by dominant left politicians, just who do you think said politicians are going to appoint? You got it, they’re dominant left friends. And even if a conservative gets on the board, any balking he or she puts up is going to be labeled ‘Anti-Veteran’ in whatever local media outlet picks the story up.
And while 20% of the millions the county will rake in is more than the veterans have now, I can point to a few that just feel used.
Lastly for the paperwork, we have a real live State Constitutional Amendment on the ballot this year: it is titled ‘Senate Joint Resolution 8207’.
This proposal amends the qualifications for service on “The Commission on Judicial Conduct� to include one member who is elected onto the commission via the judges themselves.
Are you fucking kidding me? Letting the judiciary pick their own advisory court member sounds just like the ability of state agencies being able to tell the State Auditor to piss off.
Remember, this is the state who’s Supreme Court decided that beating a four month old child to death isn’t murder and that if a 14 year old girl has her bedroom door shut, the parent has no right to monitor the child’s phone conversations in which the adult age boyfriend of the girl is describing how he robbed a store the night before.
Fox guarding the henhouse indeed.
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Now we get onto the elected offices:
Up first is the King County Executive. Think of this as the number one council member of the county. He gets to appoint people and rule almost by fiat.
Ron Sims is the jerkoff that claimed that King County’s accuracy rate in the last election was one “that any bank would envy�. Yeah, a bank that liked to lose thousands of dollars a year for the hell of it. He appointed and refused to fire Dean Logan, the guy who sat on his hands while the last election went to hell.
I wanted Sims gone even before that fiasco. All you need to know is that his nickname is Ron “Tax to the Maxâ€? Sims. He got it because the citizens passed an initiative years ago that made law the rule of incremented property tax increases. Sims took it to court and lost, but continues to ‘Tax to the Max’ the citizens of King County on their property while his case languishes in appeals court.
His Repub opponent is David Irons, a competent member fo the King County Council. Irons was running ahead in the polls until local blogger Goldy, from HorsesAss.Org (who gets no link here) got wind of disagreements between Irons and his blue blood Democrat parents. Goldy published a story from Iron’s mother in which she claimed Irons was an idiot of biblical proportions who falsified his college transcripts and assaulted her.
Needless to say, the local press picked up on the “He Beats Up His Own Mother� meme and ran with it and now Irons is trailing Sims. Never mind that the only people who support the mother’s claims are financially dependant upon her good graces and the rest of the family supports Irons claims of innocence, the media doesn’t want to talk to them.
This has led to folks such as myself calling Goldy’s blog “RonSims’Ass.Org�.
We are also selecting a new King County Sheriff this year, seeing as how former Sheriff, Dave Reichert, two stepped his way on out of this podunk burg and now works out of his office at the US House of Representatives. I’d actually be resentful about him up and leaving, but I’m sure that his occupation of the office next to Jim McDermott gives old Baghdad Jimmy heartburn.
The competitors are the current acting Sheriff, Sue Rahr, and an officer with the Seattle Police Department, Greg Schmidt.
Rahr is what is known as a ‘Ladder Cop’. She has worked her way around the different precincts until she had finally worked in each one and then started working her way up the ladder. She has not worked a patrol in the last dozen years, nor has she been qualified with her sidearm in at least six years. She was put into the acting slot by Ron Sims and the County Council, but probably only because she kisses ass better than she shoots.
I don’t know much about Schmidt, but I’m inclined to vote for him, mostly because Rahr is going to win this election hands down and I don’t want her to have the job. The leftist feel-gooders of Seattle get to vote for King County Sheriff, even though they stand little to no chance of ever actuall interacting with a Deputy, and since they reflexively vote for genitalia (aka: women over men), Rahr has it in hand.
There are a number of miscellaneous County Council seats, City Council seats and Port of Seattle Commissioner positions up for grabs, but seeing as how I don’t quite remember the who and what of my particular locale due to some change-ups in borders, I’m having to read all the write-ups, write down my choices and see what my ballot says and then see who I chose.
If you have to opportunity to vote today, make sure you do so. It may be the most important 15 minutes you spend this whole year.